As used herein, the term “subscriber station” refers to an electronic device that may be used for voice and/or data communication over a wireless communication network. Examples of subscriber stations include cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), handheld devices, wireless modems, laptop computers, personal computers, etc. A subscriber station may alternatively be referred to as a mobile station, a mobile terminal, an access terminal, a remote station, a user terminal, a terminal, a subscriber unit, user equipment, etc.
A wireless communication network may provide communication for a number of subscriber stations, each of which may be serviced by a base station. A base station may alternatively be referred to as an access point, a Node B, or some other terminology.
A subscriber station may communicate with one or more base stations via transmissions on the uplink and the downlink. The uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the subscriber station to the base station, and the downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the base station to the subscriber station.
The resources of a wireless communication network (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power) may be shared among multiple subscriber stations. A variety of multiple access techniques are known, including code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA).